EXCLUSIVE: Magicsticks on Producing Asake’s New Album, ‘M$NEY’

Magicsticks has been one of Afrobeats’ most definitive producers since the turn of the decade. With his percussive-driven records, he’s offered a vibrant soundscape for the continent’s artists to coast over, and none other has translated his skills in such spectacular style as the Nigerian artist Asake. 

M$NEY, the new album from Asake, is sufficient proof. An assured showcase between the longtime collaborators, Magicsticks produced eight out of its thirteen tracks. “[Asake] is someone that knows what he wants, and he’s intentional about that on this project,” Magicsticks tells OkayAfrica. “He didn’t really want to do too much; he just wanted to express himself, not with too many words, though. It’s a reflection of where the artist is at.”

Magicsticks allowed Asake to test his ideas, and the project's curation was a shared responsibility among the creative team. The songs on M$NEY crystallized across several cities in the world — Lagos, Dubai, Miami — anywhere the roving impulse of composition met them. This meant that Magicsticks was often around the consistently touring Asake, insisting on a Nigerian sound even though they were in faraway cities. 

When OkayAfrica first interviewed Magicsticks three years ago, he introduced himself to a mesmerized audience with Mr Money With The Vibe and Work of Art. Back then, he recounted how “[he] started producing by remixing people’s stuff, trying to add more percussion to the music I downloaded off the internet. That is how I got the name, Magicsticks. It came from me being a drummer because the major thing in my production is the drums.”

Before the final touches are added to a song, Magicsticks explores other tonal possibilities, as is evident on M$NEY. “I start with drums when I’m at the studio by myself,” he explains, “but talking about the direction of a project, we can’t base that on a drum level, because a project is more than that. Some songs came before the instrumental came to life, so there are different directions to this thing.”

He expands further on this direction. “We just keep improving, in the sense that on the M$NEY album, we tend[ed] to work with a lot of people,” Magicsticks says. “If you look at the credits, you’ll see a lot of people there. Not just artists, creatives, instrumentalists, vocalists, and stuff. It’s more intentional, more intense. On a song like ‘Amen,’ we had three different choirs from three different countries. The first choir did their thing, we were loving it, but we still felt like we needed more, and we needed the people to sound a little bit different other than Nigerians. So the second choir was in the US and the third from the UK, before we came to the satisfaction that ‘this is good now’”. 

On “Gratitude,” a dazzle of airy and percussive instruments abounds. Listen closely to the bassy pump in the drums, which sounds so similar to Fuji, yet hovers just a few levels beyond. The trumpets float with the lightness of morning clouds, as the sea-evoking notes swirl underneath. Above this Magicsticks-curated masterpiece, sit the praise-laden vocals from Asake, dispensing in his mellifluous Yoruba a familiar cache of cultural references. 

“WHY LOVE” is unarguably an Asake classic; it’s the oldest song on M$NEY but still sounds fresh within the project. It’s not so much the dramatic atmosphere as the elements that subtly enforce that scene: the shekeres and sudden synths. Asake knows how to turn romance into theater, and Magicsticks is his stage director. On “Oba,” Magicsticks turns into sheer delight the groovy bounce of Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 classic “What Won’t You Do For Love,” which Asake has performed over previously as a medley of “Nzaza” during his Red Bull Symphonic performance.

Magicsticks draws my attention to another Asake record with the same bounce as “Oba.” “[Asake]’s just personally in love with that sound and he wanted it to be part of the project,” he says. “Because originally, we already made the ‘Military’ freestyle with that same bass line. Even me, I thought that was going to be it, but while we were working on the album, he still wanted that in there.” 

One gets the sense that M$NEY, much like its title suggests, was created from a deep need to reward the artist’s journey. Its luxurious energy honors Asake’s current status as a global star and, in an unexpected full-circle moment, Magicsticks’ journey, too. “My dad plays instruments, and he DJs as well. He was always playing music around the house. I grew up in a very loud and musical home.” 

“In all honesty, I did not see myself contributing to anything from the start,” Magicsticks says about how far he’s come as a producer. “I just knew that I had this zeal. Because, at the time, I was DJing, but I still knew I wanted to produce. There was something in me that wanted to know more about music, and I was just driving at that.”